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Poster: rayd8 Date: Aug 7, 2007 6:09pm
Forum: etree Subject: Unbelievable download counts

Is there some reason that the download counters would show an UNBELIEVABLE amount of downloads (for example, in one week)?

I upload a lot of Radiators shows, but insignificant shows (ones that you would never expect that much interest) are getting hits of many ->thousands<- per week.

Is someone messing with the download count (like downloading the info file... over & over, via a BOT) just to boost the band's exposure, or is there another logical explanation for this happening?

Curious minds (like mine) need to know.

-TIA

This post was modified by rayd8 on 2007-08-08 01:05:53

This post was modified by rayd8 on 2007-08-08 01:09:33

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Poster: xtifr Date: Aug 8, 2007 11:51am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts

The download counters have reportedly been stuck, not updating, for a while. It's most likely that what you're seeing is simply the one-time massive jump as all the counters were updated to reflect the last few months activity. I would especially expect this to be the answer if these were recent uploads.

It is, of course, possible that something more is going on. The download counters are easy to mess with by anyone who wants to run a bot of some sort. Or by other, less sinister means--the current runaway top download on the Archive, for example, gets its position from the fact that that show is the default in a new, free, web-based music player. But, when I look at the numbers for the top downloads for the Rads, they're in line with what I would expect from their positions a few months back, so, whatever it is that's going on isn't having a major effect.

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Poster: Tyler Date: Aug 9, 2007 2:46pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts

words from the engineers is that b/c of the power outage the counts went down. The new engineer figured out the problem and the system is re-upping itself for all counts that were missed in the past two weeks. the search engine is reindexing and by tomorrow all should be correct and up to speed!

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Poster: xtifr Date: Aug 10, 2007 4:49pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

I just got some new info from Mike (Rayd8) which definitely suggests that there is a real problem here. This show:

http://www.archive.org/details/rad1995-01-27.flac

Has a one-star review by the uploader, which states that "there are some nasty problems. the first disc is unlistenable. Please don't download". Yet somehow, this show has suddenly jumped up to be the sixth most downloaded Radiators show on the Archive. I think there's more going on here than just some cleanup. In fact, I'm inclined to suspect that the cleanup process had some undetected but fairly major errors. Don't know if anything can be done at this point, but I thought it would be worth bringing up in any case.

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Poster: rayd8 Date: Aug 11, 2007 4:34am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

Or, better yet (not Radiators related)

Of A Revolution...

They may be getting popular, but

http://www.archive.org/details/oar2006-01-14.mix.flac16

145,623 downloads last week!
562,912 downloads last month!!
1,441,127 downloads TOTAL!!!!!!!!! (most downloaded show on the LMA)

Wouldn't there be a HUGE spike in bandwidth usage if this was for real?

And I'm sorry, but OAR is not the Grateful Dead and the Dead's biggest total count is only 356,620 downloads.

Something is wrong here....


This post was modified by rayd8 on 2007-08-11 11:34:43

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Poster: Tyler Date: Aug 11, 2007 7:41am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

The deal with that OAR show is that that particular show has become the default show stream for a new music player, causing the counts to be gargantuan. Out of the ordinary, yes I know, but it is valid because of the music player's choosing it for a default.

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Poster: Tyler Date: Aug 11, 2007 7:42am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

I have streamed the streams, as well as downloaded the original .flac seed files as well as the derivatives. All sound fine with no 'corruption' or weird noise. I do not think anything sinister has gone on as you suggest.

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Poster: rayd8 Date: Aug 11, 2007 10:47am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

So just streaming a show makes the count advance?
I thought it was a ->download<- counter.

No wonder.

So, just for clarification, if I play one song on the flash player it counts as a download?

To me that defeats the whole purpose (as I understood it to be) of the download counter. If it is, then I will just ignore those numbers in the future because it isn't a real representation of the number of people who have actually downloaded a copy for themselves.

BTW, my question (statement) had nothing to do with Jon's stating that the 1st disc was corrupted, my inquiry was solely having to do with what I considered a "download count" that seemed totally out of whack.

Again, if just streaming a show counts as a download; then yes, the numbers could be possible just because folks may have wanted to see how bad it really was (or wasn't)....

This post was modified by rayd8 on 2007-08-11 17:47:39

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Poster: NoiseCollector Date: Aug 11, 2007 11:59am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

Just watch streaming only files to verify.

http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-05-01.sbd.clugston.5465.sbeok.shnf

See if this changes when you stream.

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Poster: rayd8 Date: Aug 11, 2007 4:03pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

The counters don't immediately update per download/stream (whatever) right after, so this would not work...

This post was modified by rayd8 on 2007-08-11 23:03:20

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Poster: brewster Date: Aug 19, 2007 6:19am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: Unbelievable download counts: new info!

Yes, streaming a single song increments the download counter. If the same person streams lots of songs from one show, however, it only increments once.

the problem with the Of A Revolution show is that a song in it is in a little flash widget that seems to be used by myspace users.

I have tried a few different systems with the download counts, and all are imperfect.

-brewster